5/30/17

RadioShack Closed All But 70 Stores This Weekend

Unless you happened to walk or drive past a RadioShack this weekend, you may not have realized that Memorial Day weekend 2017 marked the end of almost all of the chain’s stores. It once had more than 7,300 locations, and now it’s down to 70 corporate stores and a few hundred franchisees.

RadioShack plans to (maybe) survive with those few dozen stores, the remaining franchisees, and by selling online. Will customers be interested in buying online once the supposed “clearance” sales are over? Does the RadioShack brand hold any value other than nostalgia?

“We have heard countless stories and truly appreciate the millions of employees and customers that have made RadioShack their neighborhood convenience electronics store for the past century,” the company said in its farewell press release, “and we invite every home in America to come innovate with us one last time.”

By “innovate,” the company seems to mean “buy everything that isn’t nailed down,” including whatever you can stuff in a bag. Its Twitter posts have become almost unbearably sad, and corporate social media still frames the closures as “select locations.” That is true in the sense that the chain has selected pretty much all of its stores to close.